Too many winters

4 December 201721 September 2018 by Theo

I am in the midst of my 53rd Winter. So far I have experienced 50 Autumns and 48 Springs, but only 47 Summers. How old am I? Why am I procrastinating Summer?

The seasons I have met (pie chart), digital image

One of the benefits of international travel is that I can spend time in different hemispheres, experiencing the different food, culture, and people of the world. I grew up in the Southern Hemisphere where Christmas is in Summer and the school year matches the calendar year. But, 14 and a bit years ago I moved to the Northern Hemisphere for work and a different lifestyle. I now get a real Winter Christmas and the academic year spans two calendar years with a long break in the Northern Hemisphere Summer/Southern Hemisphere Winter.

One of the drawbacks of living on the other side of the equator from family and friends is the opposite seasons. With my immediate family in school, our local long Summer break is the only practical time for us to visit our antipodean whanau, who are then in the midst of their Winter.

The seasons I have met (stacked), digital image

Unseasonal days experienced during the season have not been counted, only prolonged exposure to the season experienced by the rest of the hemisphere at that time.

For the purposes of my calculations, a season is counted if I was in a hemisphere experiencing any part of that season at the time. If I visit an opposite season and return before the end of the original season, the original season is only counted once – for example, I left the Northern Hemisphere Summer in June 2016, had four weeks of Southern Hemisphere Winter and returned to experience the remainder of the Northern Hemisphere Summer; earlier/later in the year I had another whole Northern Hemisphere Winter. I have only counted a season if I experienced it for at least one week – I do not remember any of the 21.5 hours of the summer of my birth.

I am using the Meteorological definition of seasons:
Southern Autumn / Northern Spring: 1 March to 31 May
Southern Winter / Northern Summer: 1 June to 31 August
Southern Spring / Northern Autumn: 1 September to 30 November
Southern Summer / Northern Winter: 1 December to 28 (29 in leap years) February
[ Source https://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/aboutseasons.html ]

No. Digits

22 June 201712 August 2019 by Theo

Can you solve these simple equations and find the pattern?

No. Digits (Just Equations). Digital Image

This was the question I posed to friends on Facebook. Thanks to them I found some missing brackets and corrected the above image, representing digits as equations.

From this, I created a simple book reminiscent of a child’s counting book or math exercise book with a number represented on each page by its equation. If you include the answers to the equations (left as an exercise for the reader), each statement has all of the digits from zero to nine appearing only once. I created the book from a school desktop flip calendar, giving it a distressed old school look by painting the pages with a mixture of gouache and acrylic house paint. Letting the wet pages stick together before separating and applying a second coat produced the rough surface for the equations in pastel, sharpie and pencil.

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The title of this work No. Digits is a play on the idea that “Number” is often abbreviated as “No.” and for each equation there is no digit for that specific number until you solve the equation.

Country Thief

3 June 201711 September 2019 by Theo

What would happen if certain countries did not exist?

One of the items in Theo’s procrastination list (since 2014) is an geographical education computer game called Country Thief.

As someone who comes from a country (New Zealand) that is often left off global maps, I decided to create a game where countries are disappearing from the map for various reasons (evil dictators, nuclear war, economic collapse, alien invasion, meteors of unusual size and shape, global warming). Players race against decreasing time limits to find the missing country and identify it. Can you beat the clock and save your country from disappearing?

Given recent current events and environmental concerns, I am releasing this concept design image for people to share on social media and make their own comments.

Approximately Φ

18 May 201712 August 2019 by Theo

Acrylic and Gouache on Lack Coffee Table, 90x55 cm — Approximately Phi, Acrylic and Gouache on Ikea Lack Coffee Table, 90×55 cm

Approximately Phi, Acrylic and Gouache on Ikea Lack Coffee Table.

The mathematics of the golden ratio [phi (ɸ) ~1.61803399] and of the Fibonacci sequence [1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, …] are intimately interconnected.

At 90 x 55 cm, the dimensions of the Ikea Lack Coffee Table are close to two consecutive terms of the Fibonacci series, and give a ratio of 1.63636363636 which is only 0.01832964761 or 1.1328% more than phi. Our coffee table was in need of refurbishment and so I painted it with this exaggerated approximation of the fibonacci series / golden ratio spiral.

There Once Was Sky (Under Construction)

7 January 20179 September 2019 by Theo

Over the last few years the landscape around our neighborhood has changed as more and more of the older buildings are replaced with luxury apartment blocks.

A neighbor behind us had a two storey house where they kept chickens on their rooftop under a grapevine.

In 2014 they and others in the street sold to developers and their houses were demolished to make way for new construction.
Concrete foundations for the new building were poured and then demolished again. Rising five floors above the second foundation the new apartment construction took about two years.

Under construction — New neighboring apartment building under construction, photograph

The new monstrosity now blocks our view of the city, hills, afternoon sun and sky.

This painting series aims to capture that there once was sky.

There once was sky, under construction. — There once was sky (under construction). Gouache on canvas board, 30x40cm.

North & South

30 August 201612 August 2019 by Theo

The Land of Confusion - North and South — The Land of Confusion – North and South, digital image

Another in The Land of Confusion series, North & South highlights places in the world with North or South in their names.

Virgin and Child #1

12 August 20161 January 2020 by Theo

Inspired by Ron Tekawa’s Madonna and Child (1990) and various historical images of the Virgin and Child.

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Vitruvian Stained (“Lumo” Vitruviano)

22 January 201612 February 2020 by Theo

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, a pioneer of the hospice care movement, said

‘People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within.’

Vitruvian Stained (“Lumo” Vitruviano) — An imagination of Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man as a stained glass image

Ten to talk about in hushed tones

26 March 201512 August 2019 by Theo

Featuring rectangles from the following works:
Mona Lisa (Leonardo da Vinci, 1517)
The Scream (Edvard Munch, 1893)
The Starry Night (Vincent van Gogh, 1889)
The Last Supper (Leonardo da Vinci, 1498)
Girl with a Pearl Earring (Johannes Vermeer, 1665)
The Creation of Adam (Michelangelo, 1512)
The Persistence of Memory (Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, 1931)
A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte (Georges Seurat, 1886)
The Great Wave off Kanagawa (Hokusai, 1832)
Guernica (Pablo Picasso, 1937)

Social media procrastination die

22 March 201512 February 2020 by Theo

For indecisive procrastinators, yesterday I created this papercraft social media die:

If you were to use an online tool to randomly choose a social media website to go to, you would save time. But procrastination is not about saving time. Using this manual tool makes your procrastination more effective. First you need to step away from the computer, roll the die (perhaps several times), then manually go to the social media website. Each step provides an opportunity for distraction and further procrastination.

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